CHILDREN: Our Canaries in the Coal Mine

By John Maerz BA LMT

     If you can, go back to when you were a child. What were the things that you heard your parents and guardians say? I’m not talking about what they said to each other, although that is important for providing us examples of how to behave toward each other, but what do you remember your parents saying to you? Just to name a few, these are things that we constantly hear today, “Did you clean your room? You be home by 10PM. Are you doing well in school? Did you win the game? Because that’s the way an adult behaves. Do it because I told you to. No child of mine is going to wear that outside the house. What did I tell you about doing that? If you don’t come over here right now you’re going to get a spanking. You are a bad boy/girl.” The list goes on and on. The key to all these questions and statements, and more, is that they all relate to authority outside of the control or of the interest of the child. Yes, children need to have guidelines on how to remain safe and how to handle themselves in our culture. This is understood and usually accepted. However, there seems to be a growing dimension of communication that is blatantly missing in how we relate to our children today. I’m not advancing this as grounds for blame as much as I see a need for us to address a growing absence that may produce irreparable harm to ourselves and the response our children will receive in dealing with the world. It consists of a different type of question that I no longer hear being verbalized. They are questions eliciting the beginnings of compassion such as, “How do you feel about this circumstance? How do you think little Joey feels when that happens to him? What would you be willing to do in order to have that? I’m proud of what you have done (rather than proud of you). What do you want? Why do you think someone would want to do that? What do you think their life would be with or without that?” Again, the list goes on and on. The key here is that the child is getting the message that the adult is being attentive to what they think and feel; that their feelings and what they think are important. In older generations some of this type of communication did take place, if only due to the fact that there was a closer proximity of family members and more family time available. Today, the emphasis on independence, the dissolving of the family and the scattering of our offspring has made this availability almost impossible. When a child is not listened to, except for explanations about circumstances adults expect to have occur, they, quite understandably, develop the belief about themselves that who and what they are has no value except as an extension or possession of the adult. This is humiliating, painful and hurtful. Nobody wants to believe that they don’t matter, let alone, the cause of someone else’s misery. The hurt becomes repressed in the subconscious because it’s just too painful to deal with. This repressed hurt emerges as anger. Anger is the helplessness of being hurt and having no control or place to put a pain that has developed hurtful teeth. The anger easily morphs into a projection of aggression. Essentially, aggression is the result of having to “stuff” our feelings and not being acknowledged as a valued person with feelings, opinions and thoughts that have any meaning for, or the respect of, others. Simply put, if we are not respected, how can we be expected to give respect to others? Before we are able give it willingly, we have to know what it feels like to receive it. The same is true for compassion.

     If we look at this situation “objectively” we cannot deny the fact that this whole issue concerning our children is eerily similar to our difficulties in dealing with the officials that we, as a nation, look to for guidance and authority. They may not be our parents but haven’t we given them the power to be so? Do we feel that they are listening to us? Do we, like our children, feel meaningless, used and unappreciated? We have trusted them to work in our best interests much like children trust their parents. In many cases, we also feel betrayed. As a nation of “children”, our jobs have been sent overseas, our benefits have been rescinded, our savings’ have been stolen, our wages have not kept pace with what we need for survival and much more. From the perspective of a child, doesn’t this sound very much like we have been “grounded?” The resulting circumstance is that we want to remain patriotic and respectful toward our elders but it appears that almost all the action they have taken indicates that they have withdrawn their respect for us in favor of focusing on their own interests and survival. How is this different from how our children view us? This is not to say, in any way, that we have handled our children abusively, however, the circumstances that have demanded that more time and energy be devoted to survival have made this appear to be so. We all know what flows downstream. Children are down stream of us and we are down stream of our elected officials. I see little difference.

     Part of the difficulty of our contemporary “progressed” society is that we no longer take the time or have the need for each other short of our immediate approval, material distractions and survival. Those who provide an example of the ideals that we were brought up to believe are becoming fewer and fewer in favor of a replacement with idols that extol manners, listening, sharing and compassion as weakness. These beautiful qualities seem to have become a liability for anyone attempting to survive in our contemporary world. How is it that survival and compassion have become mutually exclusive, or, has it always been that way?                                                                                                                                          It’s easy to see what’s wrong with things. All we have to do is look honestly. The first key, then, is to open our eyes and be honest with ourselves. To determine what to do, in the light of what we understand, is also easy. The second key, then, is to accept what we understand as being true and decide what we need to do about it to change it. It’s easy to say that we’re going to do something about what we see as wrong, but, when we receive no commendation, no rewards and no acknowledgement for doing what we feel is right, we begin to doubt our actions. The third key, then, is to have the faith in ourselves to have the strength, stamina and courage to face our conscience and live our truth. In doing this, we provide an example to our children and our elders. This is the beginning of self respect and the way back. Is there anything else worth fighting for?